UN, Ansarullah reach consensus on holding fresh Yemen talks

The United Nations and Yemeni Ansarullah movement have reached an agreement to restart a new round of peace talks with negotiators from the resigned government of former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi to end the nearly two-year-old conflict in the Arab country.

The United Nations special envoy for Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, said on Monday that he had recently met with Ansarullah and the General People's Congress leaders, and the two sides had agreed on talks in the Jordanian capital city of Amman on the formation of a ceasefire committee before the UN-sponsored peace talks later this year, Lebanon-based Arabic-language al-Mayadeen television news network reported.

Yemeni sources say the talks on the ceasefire committee will last a week, and UN experts in addition to representatives from the Ansarullah movement and the Saudi-backed former Yemeni regime will head to Saudi Arabia once a truce agreement has been struck in Amman.

The UN envoy said earlier that the talks in Jordan would deal with the technical aspects of the ceasefire committee, and political issues are excluded from the forthcoming negotiations.

On October 29, 2016, Hadi rejected a peace proposal by the UN envoy, saying the plan “rewards” the Ansarullah movement.

Details of the road map, which includes security and political arrangements, have not been made public, but according to informed sources, the proposed peace roadmap gives the Ansarullah, who are in control of large swathes of the country, including the capital of Sana’a, a share of the future government.

The plan also shrinks the president’s powers in exchange for the Ansarullah’s withdrawal from several major cities, including the capital, and the handover of their heavy weapons to a third party.

Meanwhile, the Yemeni Defense Ministry has roundly dismissed reports that Hadi loyalists have captured the port city of Mukha, situated 346 kilometers south of Sana'a.

A source in the ministry, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Yemeni soldiers and fighters from allied Popular Committees had engaged in fierce skirmishes with the Saudi-sponsored militiamen in Dhubab district overlooking the Bab al-Mandab strait, killing scores of the armed men.

SS